标签： Oceania

Bolivia has entered its fourth week of widespread anti-government demonstrations, with President Rodrigo Paz warning Wednesday that the Andean nation has reached a critical “breaking point” as blockades have choked off supplies of food, fuel, and life-saving medical resources to the country’s political capital La Paz.

Six months into his term, the US-backed center-right leader took office during Bolivia’s most severe economic downturn in 40 years. Now he faces a growing wave of public anger rooted in policy disagreements, led by low-income workers and members of Bolivia’s Indigenous majority — the nation’s largest demographic group — who have gathered in La Paz demanding his immediate resignation.

Speaking at a public gathering in the capital Wednesday, the 58-year-old president reiterated his call for negotiation while stressing the urgent need for social order. “The country needs order, and is reaching breaking point,” Paz stated. The previous day, Bolivia’s Congress removed legislative barriers that would prevent the president from declaring a national state of emergency, clearing the way for a potential military deployment to clear blockades and restore calm.

To date, Paz has framed dialogue as his preferred path forward, but has refused to rule out activating what he calls “constitutional instruments” to end the ongoing siege of La Paz — a clear reference to emergency powers. “Anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the Constitution,” he added, confirming that police and military forces enjoy full public and government backing for their efforts to maintain order.

Paz’s warnings coincided with a high-profile Mother’s Day march in La Paz, where thousands of Indigenous women in traditional layered skirts took to the streets to back striking transport workers and amplify the call for the president’s ouster. “We are not afraid to die. We have already told him to pack his bags and leave,” protest organizer Marta Poma Luque told Agence France-Presse in an on-the-ground interview.

The unrest first erupted in early May, when demonstrators initially called for higher wages to offset the impact of the deep economic crisis, more reliable fuel distribution, and the full repeal of a deeply unpopular agrarian reform law. Though Paz has already backed down on several key demands, including rolling back parts of the land reform, demonstrations have expanded into a full-scale movement against his administration.

Over the past two weeks, La Paz has descended into repeated conflict, with riot police clashing regularly with thousands of blockading protesters. The blockades have cut off all major supply routes into the city, leaving residents facing acute shortages of critical goods. Local resident Zulm Hinojosa, whose 13-year-old son lives with chronic asthma and heart conditions, told reporters that essential medication has become exponentially more expensive and in many cases has run out entirely.

At Clinicas de La Paz, one of the country’s oldest and largest public medical facilities, medical staff confirmed Tuesday the hospital only has enough oxygen to sustain patients for a few more days. For his part, Paz has calculated total economic losses from the weeks of unrest at roughly $600 million.

In a bid to defuse tensions, the president has already announced a series of concessions: he pledged to halve his own presidential salary as a gesture of solidarity with low-income Bolivians, a largely symbolic move given his monthly salary of just 24,000 bolivianos (approximately $3,500). He has also promised greater policy input for Indigenous groups and labor unions, and dismissed his widely unpopular labor minister. None of these steps have managed to end the protests.

Paz’s administration has accused former president Evo Morales of secretly orchestrating the nationwide unrest. Morales is currently in hiding, facing criminal charges related to the alleged trafficking of a teenage girl with whom prosecutors claim he fathered a child.

In response to the crippling blockades, small groups of La Paz residents have held counter-demonstrations in recent days calling for an end to the supply disruptions that have turned daily life in the capital into a crisis.

In a targeted strike that has further escalated tensions amid a fragile current ceasefire, Israel announced Wednesday that it has killed Mohammed Odeh, the newly appointed leader of Hamas’s Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group. Odeh’s assassination marks the fourth time Israel has eliminated the top commander of the Brigades since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, underscoring Israel’s sustained campaign to decapitate Hamas’s leadership structure.

Odeh was appointed to the role just weeks earlier, following the Israeli killing of his predecessor Ezzedine al-Haddad on May 15. The confirmation of his death came in a joint statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet domestic security agency, which noted Odeh was killed in a strike on Tuesday. Hamas later publicly confirmed Odeh’s death, referring to him as a martyred leader of the Palestinian resistance in a defiant statement that condemned the attack as a “cowardly assassination.”

The strike did not end with Odeh: the entire family was killed in the attack, including his wife and three children — two adult sons and a minor daughter. The assassination took place during Eid al-Adha, one of the most important religious holidays in the Muslim calendar. Bassem Abu Odeh, a cousin of the deceased leader, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Odeh and his family had been making preparations to celebrate the holiday when Israeli missiles struck their location. “They were ready to welcome Eid, but instead the criminal Zionists welcomed and targeted them with missiles,” he said.

On Wednesday, hundreds of mourners gathered in Gaza City for Odeh’s funeral. An AFP journalist on the ground reported that an AK-47 rifle was placed atop Odeh’s casket as the procession carried his body to a local mosque for traditional funerary prayers before burial.

Prior to taking command of the Brigades, Odeh served for years as the head of Hamas’s intelligence division and was one of the highest-ranking remaining Hamas leaders still operating in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reacted to the killing with characteristic belligerence, writing on social media platform X that Odeh had been “sent to meet his associates in the depths of hell.”

The strike on Odeh came hours before the IDF announced another targeted operation in northern Gaza Wednesday evening, saying it had hit two senior Hamas operatives, identified by Israeli media as a brigade commander and his deputy. Local rescue officials from Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency reported that the central Gaza City strike left 10 people dead and multiple others wounded, with a medical source confirming five children were among the fatalities.

Odeh’s assassination is the latest in a years-long, systematic Israeli campaign to eliminate top Hamas figures across the region, launched in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 cross-border attack that triggered the current war. Israel has already killed a long list of senior Hamas leadership in recent months: former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar — widely labeled the mastermind of the October 7 attack — longtime armed wing commander Mohammed Deif, and Mohammed Sinwar, who succeeded his brother Yahya as Hamas’s Gaza leader, have all been killed in Israeli strikes.

In his social media statement, Katz reaffirmed Israel’s commitment to eliminating all Hamas leaders responsible for the October 7 attack. “We committed ourselves to eliminating everyone who led the October 7 massacre, and that is what we will do: they are all marked for death, wherever they may be,” he wrote. IDF Arabic spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Ella Waweya echoed that messaging, joking that the position of Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades commander “has become the shortest-lived job in Gaza.” She added, “The question is no longer who’s next — but how long they have left.”

Katz also reiterated Israel’s core war goal of dismantling Hamas’s rule over Gaza, and alluded to a controversial Israeli plan to push for the forced displacement of Gaza’s civilian population. “The plan for voluntary migration from Gaza will also be implemented — everything will be done at the right time and in the right way,” he said. The displacement proposal is heavily backed by far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and gained brief support from former U.S. President Donald Trump before he walked back the position. The United Nations’ top human rights official, High Commissioner Volker Turk, condemned such plans in February, denouncing proposals “aimed at making a permanent demographic change in Gaza.”

Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group and key Hamas ally, released a statement of condolence following Odeh’s killing, dismissing Israeli efforts to break Palestinian resistance through leadership decapitation. “All Israeli attempts to undermine this resistance by targeting its leadership and fighters will end in failure,” the group said.

Despite a formal ceasefire that has been in place since October 10, daily violent incidents continue to rock the Gaza Strip, with both sides repeatedly accusing one another of truce violations. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, whose casualty figures are deemed reliable by the United Nations, reports that more than 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action since the ceasefire went into effect. Israel currently maintains full military control over roughly 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, including all border entry and exit points, while the vast majority of Gaza’s civilian population is confined to a narrow coastal strip.

In a stunning verbal outburst that has sent shockwaves through diplomatic circles, former US President Donald Trump issued what appears to be an explicit military threat against Oman, a long-standing key American ally in the volatile Middle East, over ongoing negotiations to reopen the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz. The remarks, delivered during a White House cabinet meeting Wednesday, have already reignited questions about the 79-year-old leader’s inconsistent rhetoric and frequent verbal missteps amid rising tensions in the Gulf region.

When pressed by reporters on whether he would accept a short-term agreement that would let Iran and Oman jointly manage access to the key waterway, Trump delivered a blunt and aggressive response. “No, the strait is going to be open to everybody,” he stated firmly. “It’s international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that, they’ll be fine.”

Immediately following the comments, reporters from Agence France-Presse reached out to the White House to ask whether Trump had misspoken, with widespread speculation that he may have intended to target Iran rather than Oman — a close security partner that has repeatedly attempted to mediate ongoing Middle East conflicts and has even faced direct attacks from Tehran in recent months. To date, the White House has not issued any correction, clarification, or walkback of the president’s remarks. The US State Department even went a step further, publishing an unedited video clip and full transcript of Trump’s comments about Oman to its official channels, with no note indicating a verbal error.

This latest verbal gaffe fits a broader pattern of mixed-up names and locations for the president. Earlier this term, Trump confused Iran and Venezuela, incorrectly claiming that the South American nation — whose leader Nicolas Maduro was toppled by US military intervention in January — “no longer has a navy, no longer has an air force.” This aggressive phrasing of destroying a target’s military capabilities is one Trump has repeatedly deployed when referring to Iran, which was jointly attacked by US and Israeli forces on February 28.

The current standoff centers on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that normally carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s daily oil trade. In recent weeks, Iran has pushed to establish a new status quo at the strait, proposing a plan to charge transit tolls on passing commercial vessels and split the generated revenue with Oman. Negotiations to end the ongoing Middle East war and reopen the strait to full unimpeded transit have stalled once again, a development that has deepened Trump’s public frustration — just days after he confidently claimed a final deal was within reach.

Diplomatic observers have noted that the uncorrected threat against Oman marks an unprecedented break with longstanding US diplomatic norms, raising concerns about the stability of American alliances in a region already roiled by months of open conflict.

A newly viral video showing U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. grabbing two writhing black snakes with his bare hands has reignited public discussion of the controversial cabinet member’s long track record of unusual, often bizarre encounters with wild animals.

Kennedy, who has long drawn backlash for his fringe, conspiracy-tinged views on public health issues including false claims that childhood vaccines are linked to autism and unsubstantiated warnings that fluoride added to public drinking water causes harm, has built a public reputation as an eccentric figure through his many offbeat animal-related antics.

The most recent incident, shared by Kennedy himself on the social platform X on Tuesday, shows the health secretary dressed in a formal dress shirt and tie, pulling two black racers from the corner of an outdoor patio by their tails and holding the squirming reptiles up for the camera with a smile. At one point in the footage, one of the snakes bites Kennedy, as an off-camera voice—identified in Kennedy’s caption as his wife, actress Cheryl Hines—pleads, “Bobby, Bobby, please.” Kennedy noted in his post that the snakes were removed from the patio of Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services that Kennedy leads.

The National Park Service confirms that black racers are non-venomous and pose no threat to humans if left undisturbed. But snake conservation experts have issued a sharp warning against copying Kennedy’s behavior, noting that untamed snakes will often bite when handled, and misidentification of venomous vs. non-venomous species can lead to life-threatening injury.

“What I don’t want is people copying him,” Cameron Young of the Center for Snake Conservation told Agence France-Presse. “If a kid picks up a venomous snake because RFK did, then the kid may receive a medically significant bite.”

This viral snake video is far from the first of Kennedy’s unusual animal adventures to make headlines. In 2024, Kennedy himself admitted in a video that a decade prior, he dragged a dead bear cub killed by a car upstate New York to Central Park in Manhattan, propping it next to a bicycle to stage the appearance that the animal had died in a cycling accident. The bizarre incident baffled New York City law enforcement for years, until Kennedy confessed to the prank.

Other stories shared by Kennedy and his family add to the eccentric image. According to an account from his daughter, Kennedy once used a chainsaw to sever the head of a dead whale that washed up on the coast of Massachusetts, then strapped the massive body part to the roof of the family minivan to transport it home for study of its skull. In an upcoming 2026 biography, Kennedy also recalled cutting the genitalia off a road-killed raccoon to preserve the specimen for later study.

In one notable incident that carried actual health risks, The New York Times once reported that a physician discovered a dead parasitic brain worm in Kennedy’s brain after he sought treatment for persistent memory loss. Kennedy has stated he made a full recovery with no long-term health effects from the infection.

Unlike many public figures who would face embarrassment over such a collection of unusual stories, Kennedy has never expressed shame or regret over his actions. Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse summed up public reaction to his unusual connection to wildlife in a sharp quip: “He has a relationship with animals that most of us only dream of. Nightmares are also dreams.”